


Now What?

by Zarla



Category: Left 4 Dead
Genre: Apologies, Arguing, Codependency, Drama, Female Characters, Gen, Pre-Canon, Subtext, bad at feelings, poor communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-06
Updated: 2010-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunter disappears. Smoker can handle this. Honest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now What?

**Author's Note:**

> Set before they were both infected. More information on them [here](http://www.ashido.com/huntersmoker/).

**Title:** Now What?  
**Fandom:** Left 4 Dead  
**Genre:** Drama?  
**Pairing:** Ambivalently FemaleOC!Hunter/FemaleOC!Smoker, does that make sense? IT'S REALLY UP TO YOU HOW TO INTERPRET IT  
**Warnings:** Nothing really.  
**Summary:** Hunter disappears. Smoker can handle this. Honest.  
**Notes:** Set before they were both infected.

  


Once, Hunter disappeared for an entire month without any warning or explanation. Not even a note.

More than anything, Smoker wanted to say that this didn't bother her, that she didn't even notice, but that would have been a blatant lie.

At first, she thought it was because maybe something had come up. She cooked dinner as she usually did, two cod fillets because they'd been on sale and Hunter did like fish (it was easy to tease her about being catlike, and her hoodie did not help). Hunter usually came to her window around this time, tapping softly and waiting for her to come open it for her.

Tonight, there was nothing. Eventually Smoker covered the extra fillet with saran wrap and put it in the microwave, fully intending to scold Hunter for letting perfectly good food get cold whenever she showed up. She ate in front of her TV, alone, and Hunter did not show up.

Before she went to sleep, she wrapped the plate up more carefully and put it back in her fridge, and despite herself, she went to the window and looked outside. It was dark and she couldn't see anything, not that she expected to see much. Why would Hunter be lurking outside her window right that moment?

Ridiculous.

Hunter didn't come every night; there was no reason to worry. Smoker had just assumed she'd come tonight because she tended to come by on Tuesdays, but maybe she was busy, or something had come up. There were many reasons why Hunter wouldn't have made it. It was nothing to worry about.

Smoker woke up the next morning, got dressed, cursed the world and the job she hated but still had to go to, and when she went to make breakfast she saw Hunter's dinner sitting in her fridge. She stared at it for a few seconds, finding it did nothing to improve her mood, before getting the eggs.

Waste of food and time. Not unusual for Hunter, of course. When she did show up, Smoker'd be sure to say something about it to her.

She made breakfast and went to work, bored out of her mind and irritated as usual, and nothing unusual happened. She came home and found no note, no indication that maybe Hunter had been there or waited for her. She wasn't there.

Smoker wasn't hungry, didn't make herself anything to eat. Subconsciously waiting, and when the hunger got to the point where it started to hurt, she went to the kitchen and stood there for a few minutes, thinking about what to do.

Hunter hadn't shown up yesterday... _maybe_ she'd come today. But why should Smoker make her something to eat again if she might not even be here? It'd serve her right... let her eat leftovers.

Smoker made herself something, finding herself distracted by unpleasant thoughts that wouldn't completely form, and ate about half of her own dinner before putting it in the fridge with the abandoned cod fillet. She wasn't as hungry as she'd thought.

She watched TV for a while, fidgeting and looking around the room like she expected someone to attack her (which only irritated her further, since it was a stupid thing to do and yet she kept doing it). It got late, and she had to go to bed for work in the morning.

She went to the window, opened it, stuck her head out to look around. Nothing.

She slammed it shut and stalked to her bedroom, slamming the door for no one. Fine. Whatever she was doing out there, Smoker didn't care. It didn't matter.

It took her a while to get to sleep.

She got up the next morning, stared at herself in the mirror, frowned and got dressed. She couldn't shake that general unpleasant feeling, and she couldn't put a name to it. She ate the remains of her dinner from last night while she read the newspaper, trying to focus on the stories rather than the words without success. She glanced out her window before she left - nothing. Just like before.

She came home to no one.

Smoker went about her normal routine; changed her clothes, lit a cigarette, put her things away, turned on the television, sat down and tried to relax and her leg wouldn't stop twitching. She went to the window - no one was there.

She opened it, stuck her head out, nothing. She looked down, considered for the briefest moment climbing out of it, then shook her head at how stupid she was being. How stupid this all was. This was ridiculous.

This was stupid.

She shut the window and tried to watch TV. When that didn't work, she tried to read. When that didn't work, she shut herself in her bedroom and put on one of her favorite CDs and closed her eyes and tried to think of anything, anyone else.

Hunter would laugh at her if she saw her like this. She'd only been gone a few days. _You sure fall apart without me fast_, Hunter would say. _I didn't know you needed me _that_ much_.

Smoker put out her cigarette and lit another one, scowling. She didn't need anyone. She definitely didn't need someone like Hunter. Hunter was the one who needed _her_, who came to see her all the time, who relied on her for food and support and sometimes shelter when she wanted to sleep over, and Smoker didn't need that. Smoker didn't need her interruptions, didn't need her pestering, didn't need her in her life. Hunter was a distraction, a stray cat, a parasite.

Smoker should have been glad to get away from her for a while. To have some time to herself. She'd done just fine by herself before Hunter had shown up, after all. She didn't need anyone. She never needed anyone, and she lived alone and that was just fine by her. That was how things were - Smoker relied on herself. The only person she ever needed was herself.

Hunter could stay gone forever, for all Smoker cared. She didn't need her.

When she finally looked at the clock, it was two AM. She hadn't eaten anything. She cursed, went to the kitchen, made a cup of instant noodles and gulped it down quickly before lying down in bed and shutting her eyes.

It took her until five AM to get to sleep, and two hours later she had to get up for work.

Hunter did not show up that night, or the next, or the one after that.

As the days went by without her, Smoker felt angrier and angrier. Work was worse than ever, and coming home to nothing, to no one, to Hunter invisibly laughing at her for being disappointed about it, didn't make it any better. At one point she made a late night run to get cigarettes at the corner store, and while she was there she eyed a box of ice cream bars.

Hunter, if she had been there, would have told her not to get those, not without something else like beer or ice cream or soda to make some kind of float, or something to make it fun instead of just sad, and Smoker pulled the box out of the freezer. She could buy whatever she wanted, it was her money and Hunter wasn't here. Hunter didn't care. She was off somewhere, doing whatever it was she was doing, and who knew when she'd be back. She didn't tell Smoker anything, that was for sure.

If Hunter didn't care, then Smoker didn't care. She didn't need anyone. She was fine by herself.

She had one ice cream bar when she got home, but found that was all she could eat. She'd lost her appetite, and soon went to bed where she tossed and turned for the rest of the night.

Where was she?

At work, the thought occurred to her that maybe something had happened to her. Hunter lived an active and dangerous life - the wounds she'd come back with every now and then were proof of that. She'd compared her to a stray cat more than once and the description was more accurate than Hunter had liked. And, like taking in a stray cat, Smoker had no idea where Hunter was when she wasn't being fed or sitting in her lap. She had her own private life outside of her, fighting with other cats for territory, or with her friends, or jumping off of buildings, or whatever. For all the time they'd spent together, Smoker had never asked Hunter for details about her life, what she did, where she lived.

Smoker didn't care - it wasn't important.

Now she had no idea.

What if something had happened to her? Smoker stood outside her workplace, cigarette in hand, and she stared out at the street and the cars going by. That parkour thing... what if she'd gotten hurt? Smoker didn't even know her full name... how would she ever know? Would one serious injury, one death, even make it to the news here?

Maybe Hunter had been trying to get to her, reach her, but couldn't. Maybe Smoker had been hating her for being gone for nothing.

Once the thought that something bad had happened to her had taken root, it was impossible to shake. Smoker sat in her kitchen when she came home, breathing out smoke as she stared at the window, Hunter's window, waiting for her to appear. Waiting for the sound of someone climbing on the fire escape, for a finger tapping against the glass, for anything. Something.

Nothing.

Hunter did not appear. Smoker was down another pack of cigarettes, and she'd just bought these.

She sat on her couch, and she ate an ice cream bar and tried to focus on anything, but all she could think of were those times when Hunter would come to her, bruised and bleeding and smiling, talking about a fight she'd been in like it wasn't anything unusual. What she looked like when she was hurt. What she might look like in a hospital gown. What she might look like on a coroner's table.

Contact her next of kin, her emergency contact. If it was her, she would have heard something by now.

Hunter had her own life, and it took precedence. Smoker was a small part in it - wherever she was, Hunter apparently didn't care enough about her role in it to tell her why she was gone, to give her some idea of where she'd gone. Hunter had simply left her without any warning, maybe lying dead in a ditch somewhere for all she knew. She'd left her no tools to find her, no way to track her down, and that was probably the part that enraged her the most. That she'd left her so helpless to do something about it.

Smoker did not like feeling helpless.

If she was dead, Smoker might not ever even know for sure. And if she was dead, Hunter surely did not want to be that way but Smoker blamed her for it anyway.

She should have asked for more information, some way to find her if she disappeared, but she hadn't. She never asked because she never thought Hunter would disappear. Hunter had worked her way into her life so steadily (not that Smoker had even asked or wanted her to do that, which just added another level of unfairness to this entire thing) that her presence had become a given, and the thought that someday she might _not_ be there hadn't occurred to her. Not until now, and Smoker never thought it'd be a problem, never thought to find a way to track her down because Hunter would never leave. Hunter always came to her, she never came to Hunter.

That was how it worked - Hunter came to her, pursued her. Smoker did not pursue her, want her, need her. Smoker did not need anyone.

Hunter apparently did not need her.

The thought of making dinner was too exhausting - Smoker just had another ice cream bar and a cigarette and went to bed, and tried to sleep without success.

She could count the solid hours of sleep she'd had in the past five days on one hand. Irritable in general, this did nothing to improve her mood. People at work were noticing, the more charitable telling her that whatever was going on, she needed to take some time off and take care of herself.

Smoker was fine. She didn't need help, she didn't need advice, she didn't need to take care of herself. She was fine.

This wasn't affecting her. She was fine.

In the mornings she felt dizzy and angry, and when she came home she had to sit down after coming up the stairs, breathing hard. She was shaking a lot these days, and felt too tired to do anything other than watch TV and try not to think. Cooking seemed like too much work - she had enough instant stuff that it wasn't a pressing concern, and she didn't see any reason why she shouldn't eat a cupcake for dinner and leave it at that.

She was going through cigarettes at an alarming pace, even for her, and she blamed Hunter for that too. Costing her money. It didn't mean anything.

She lay on her couch, staring at the television, imagining Hunter dead somewhere and imagining her with her friends and laughing and having fun, and she felt so angry and helpless that she just wanted to break something. Her hands were shaking, her eyes were red and wouldn't stop stinging. She thought of how they used to watch TV together, of the sort of things that Hunter would say if she were here, and she pressed her face against the couch cushions and covered her head with her hands.

She hated this, she hated her, she hated feeling like this, she hated thinking like this, being like this, feeling like this. Hated it, hated it, hated it and her for making this happen, for forcing her way into her life and leaving a big hole when she left, and she did not need her, she didn't. She never needed anyone. She didn't miss her. She didn't miss anyone. Who would miss Hunter anyway? She was a pain in the ass - all she did was annoy her. She'd make those smart comments, poke at her, sit on her, pounce on her, sit with her at the table and eat with her, and read with her, and listen to music with her and sometimes fall asleep with her arm around her, close enough that she could feel her heart beating.

She felt ashes falling into her hair, and she forgot she still had her cigarette in hand. She sat up, shook her head, ran her fingers through her hair, and then pressed them against her eyes. Smoker clenched her teeth, made a hissing sound, tension almost unbearable and had she not been someone with so much self-control she would have screamed.

Where was she? What had happened to her?

Smoker barely ate, and she barely slept, and it wasn't because she wasn't trying. Taking more than a few bites of anything seemed like too much effort, forcing herself past that point just made her feel sick, and no matter how hard she tried to fall asleep, she couldn't. She lay awake, blankets twisted around her, staring at the ceiling with bleary eyes and wishing Hunter was here so she could punch her in the face for doing this, for being so thoughtless and stupid. That would solve the problem.

She didn't need her. She didn't miss her. Even if she was falling apart without her, and when that thought crossed her mind she immediately amended it. She wasn't falling apart. Not over something like this.

She wasn't.

She was sitting at her kitchen table after work late one night, one month since the last time she had seen her, with her head in her hands. She breathed smoke into her lungs, let it out again slowly, her eyes red and watery, exhaustion near the breaking point. She could almost fall asleep right here, right at the table, but she knew she'd be awake a few minutes later. She'd eaten one Pop-Tart out of two - the other seemed too much to manage, stuck in her throat and made her feel sick.

When she heard a tap at the window, she assumed it was her imagination. Hunter was gone, had left her. Not that Smoker cared - she didn't need her.

The tapping didn't go away, and when Smoker turned her head, something that almost took too much effort, she saw cat ears through the glass. She blinked a few times, slowly, and then she was opening the window. She didn't even remember getting up or walking there.

"Where were you?" were the first words out of her mouth, rough and unsteady, and she coughed. Hunter crawled in through the window like always, her face obscured by her hood, and when she straightened up she kept her back to her.

"Where were you?" Smoker said again, more insistently this time, and Hunter turned to look at her sidelong. She wasn't smiling.

"Something came up," Hunter said, with a tone in her voice that made it sound like Smoker was imposing on her for asking. So many things had been running through her head when she'd seen her again, so many things Smoker wanted to say and do, and instead that tone in her voice just made her angry.

"Do you know how long it's been?" Smoker said, waving a hand and tracing smoke patterns into the air. "A month, you know that? You didn't even warn me."

"Oh c'mon, you're fine without me," Hunter said, with something like a teasing smile but there was something too sincere to it, something that dug into her sharply in a way she didn't like. "I told you, something came up. I didn't have a chance."

"What do you mean, something? Like what? Did you leave the country or something?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Hunter shoved her hands into the pouch of her sweatshirt, a silent but obvious signal that this topic of discussion was over.

The two of them rarely talked openly about emotions - they kept how they felt behind insults and teasing, in good-spirited jabs at the other. That was how things worked, and it worked well almost all of the time. It was comfortable and familiar and easy. When something too intimate, too honest accidentally surfaced between them, they backed away to more familiar ground.

_I missed you_, might have been said, if they'd been any other two people. _I was scared. I thought you were dead. I didn't know what happened to you. I was scared, and I missed you and I'm glad you're okay._

But that wasn't who they were. Those thoughts, more feelings than words, ran through Smoker's head and she didn't say them - she didn't even consider it. She was angry and relieved and hurt, and she did what she normally did.

She backed off.

"Fine. Whatever," Smoker growled out as she walked past her to her bedroom. She didn't look behind her to see if Hunter was following her and didn't care if she did either way. _Fine._

When she'd walked into her bedroom she'd been intent on doing something, and now she wasn't sure if it was anything other than just walking away from Hunter. After a moment of thought, she began to pick up some of the clothing strewn on the floor in her bedroom for something to do with her hands, trying to hide how hard she was shaking. She needed to clean anyway, figures that Hunter would come and distract her now. She heard a few footsteps across her carpet towards her, but none too close.

"You look like shit," Hunter said. Normally something that she would have said to tease her, like when she woke up with her hair a mess after the two of them had spent a night drinking and laughing. This time the statement had an undercurrent of actual emotion to it - real concern.

"Thanks." Smoker dumped the clothes in the hamper, and pulled her cigarette from her mouth with a sharp quick movement, breathing a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. She wanted to think of something scathing in reply, exhausted mind grasping desperately for something clever and she came up with nothing. "That's nice."

That didn't improve her mood any either.

"What did you do when I was gone?" Like Smoker had been up to something illegal or something, and she didn't come any closer. Smoker turned to face her, her arms crossed. Hunter was standing in her living room, picking at the duct tape around her wrists and giving her an almost incredulous look. _What the hell, man?_ She could almost hear it, almost accusatory. _What happened to you? What the hell? What am I supposed to do now?_

There were things Smoker wanted to say, things she would have said had things been different, but all that came to mind was how hurt she felt and how angry she was that she hurt. That she'd let herself be hurt by someone else, by Hunter. That she'd cared, despite how hard she told herself she didn't.

_I missed you._ And Smoker glared at Hunter. _I thought you were dead and it nearly killed me too._

"Same thing I did before you were here." Gritted out between clenched teeth with more anger than she'd intended, and Hunter tilted her head at her, frowning. Smoker walked back to her kitchen, past her without looking at her again. "I hope you don't think I'm going to make dinner for you this time."

"Do you even make dinner at all anymore? You lost like, twenty pounds." That should have been a joke or something, but it didn't sound like one.

"If all you want to do is make smart comments, then just get out," Smoker snapped, and she began tidying her countertop. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking and it was pissing her off even further.

"Touchy. You say that like I ever do anything else." Hunter was following her, a few steps behind like usual. Like she hadn't been gone. "What's with you all of a sudden?"

_You disappeared for a month and didn't tell me where you were going, or what you did, or what happened, or anything, you just vanished and I thought you were dead and you don't care-_

"Nothing."

"Yeah right," Hunter said, and after a few more moments, she added, "Look, I'm... sorry I just disappeared like that. I didn't have time to warn you, and I thought you'd be fine without me for a little while. Sorry if you got worried or something."

Worried or something.

"I _was _fine."

"You don't look like you're fine."

"I _am_ fine, and I don't give a shit where you go or what you do." Smoker turned around and looked Hunter straight in the eye, holding her cigarette now with a trembling hand. Her whole body was shaking, and she couldn't make it stop and that made it worse. "I don't care. It's not my problem."

Hunter stared at her, forehead furrowed. She could see hurt in Hunter's eyes now, and part of her was glad that she'd hurt her in return but more of her just wanted to go into her room and shut the door and scream.

"Well good for you." In a tone that clearly indicated that she knew Smoker was not fine, and Smoker narrowed her eyes at that. Like she knew her, she didn't know her. "If you don't care that I'm here, then maybe I should just go."

_Already, she'd just barely gotten here and already she was leaving, and who knew when she'd be back-_

"Go ahead. I don't care." Smoker turned away from her again. "Go ahead."

"I thought you'd-" She cut herself off. "Fine. Fine, be that way," Hunter said, her voice rising, and she went to the window. "You can just go ahead and smoke yourself to death, see if I care. Have fun starving to death like a big shut-in-"

"Just get out!" Smoker shouted, her voice cracking, and Hunter darted out the window. She leaned back through it, her eyes narrowed.

"Fine! See if I come back!"

_Don't go, please don't go_

"Out! Get out!" Smoker shouted again, and Hunter slammed the window down and vanished. "Don't come back!"

She stood there, shaking, muscles tight from rage, and she watched the window to see if Hunter was really gone. Her legs felt weak, and she sat down at the table, and she stared for a few minutes more and didn't see anything, and

_I'm sorry, please come back_

she didn't say anything.

  
Hunter sat beneath Smoker's window, out of sight, for several minutes after their argument, trying to convince herself not to just go back in there and punch Smoker in the gut for being such a jerk.

She thought she'd be happy to see her again, it wasn't like she'd wanted to leave. She didn't want to just leave her like that, and even if she didn't want to talk about it (was _not_ going to talk about it, no matter what) she said she was sorry and everything, but she wasn't really good at this stuff and what did Smoker even want from her? It wasn't like Hunter said she was sorry and meant it _a lot_, so that should count for something at least. And then she acted like she didn't care, just la-dee-dah and shut her out after all this time and what was she supposed to do? Smoker didn't even want to talk to her, and fine, let her be that way. She was starving and looked crazy and she wasn't fine but if Smoker didn't want to admit it then fine, she could be crazy and mean all by herself. It wasn't like Hunter didn't have other friends.

But she didn't have any other friends like Smoker, and that was why she was here. She really thought (hoped, maybe) Smoker would have been happier to see her, like maybe even hugged her happy even, and instead she just brushed her off like she didn't even care, hadn't even noticed. Like she was just another nuisance, no big deal and Smoker was such a big deal to her that it didn't seem fair that she didn't feel the same way back. Smoker had been all she could think about when they were apart and Smoker didn't even care. Smoker never cared as much about her as she did in return, and that hurt and it drove her crazy and why did she even try with her sometimes, seriously. Smoker didn't care about anyone but herself. She didn't even care that Hunter was back after all this time. She could be so selfish and stupid.

But Smoker really looked like a mess, even if she didn't want to admit it. And if she really hadn't slept in like a year (cause that's sure what it looked like, and to be honest Hunter was scared for her but wasn't about to tell her that _now_) then she probably wouldn't really be rational. She'd had conversations with Smoker when she was half-asleep or sleep deprived before, and as hilarious as they were, they weren't exactly coherent. Not by a long-shot. So maybe that was why she was acting this way, maybe she was just really tired and grouchy.

She didn't have to be a jerk about it and kick her out though.

She stewed in her anger for a few more minutes but it didn't last long. She didn't come here to fight with Smoker, she didn't want to be angry at her. She wanted to tease her and have fun and watch TV together and hug her and mess with her again like she did before. She missed that, she missed her more than anything. That's why she came here, not to get yelled at or yell at her in return.

Carefully, she sat up a little and peeked in over the edge of the window. Smoker was sitting at her table, her head buried in her arms and she was shaking. A few more seconds and Hunter realized that she was probably crying.

Oh shit.

Now what should she do? She was never good with crying people, and definitely not a crying Smoker. She'd never even seen a crying Smoker before, she didn't even know she could do that. She must have _really_ been in bad shape to let that happen, and any scraps of anger Hunter felt towards her completely vanished. She ducked back down and tried to think of what to do or say, how to make her feel better, and came up distressingly blank. This really wasn't her area of expertise... she _wanted_ to do something but as hard as she tried to think of the magic words to fix it, nothing came. She just wanted to go somewhere else until things calmed down and she didn't feel as lost.

A few more minutes of thought and she had an idea of what she could do, and she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and scribbled a quick message. She slid it, quietly, beneath the window, and watched her for a few more seconds just in case. Smoker still had her head down, still shaking, and Hunter was glad the window was shut so she couldn't hear her. She could only watch her for a few more seconds before it got too painful and awkward. She shouldn't be seeing this. Nobody should really be seeing this.

With her note in place, Hunter left. She'd come back later when Smoker had calmed down and maybe things could get back to normal.

Tomorrow things would be okay.

  


If there was one positive element to her brief crying jag against the table, it was that it left her too drained to resist sleep. She struggled with her tears, fought with them, tried to make them stop and eventually when she'd choked them down, she got up and went to her bedroom. She curled up on one side, unable to find the energy to try and get beneath the covers, and fell asleep in moments.

That was the only good thing to come out of the entire experience.

When she woke up, her head ached, her throat hurt, and her eyes felt sore. When she tried to remember what had happened the previous day, her thoughts veered away almost in self-preservation. She got up slowly with a long groan, thoughts buzzing in a dull haze, and went about her routine as best she could.

She didn't eat breakfast, didn't even enter the kitchen or look at the window, and the drive to work was almost agony. Now that she was more awake she could remember what had happened yesterday: everything she'd said, how she'd felt, and what it sounded like when Hunter left. When she slammed the window down and left, again, and this time Smoker couldn't say she didn't get a warning. Some part of her wanted to feel satisfied about it, wanted to finally wipe her hands of the entire business, go back to how things were before Hunter had crashed through her window what felt like years ago. This is what she wanted. To be alone again, like before. She'd always wanted that before.

And another, louder part of her inside just screamed.

A coworker asked her if she was alright, and it turned out she'd been standing next to the copy machine for almost fifteen minutes, staring at the wall. They told her, again, that she looked terrible. That she needed to go home and take some time off. Spend some time on herself. You really look awful.

Smoker didn't say much to them, she never had and she didn't now. She didn't refute them, just went back to work and tried to focus on it without success. She could hear the sound of the window slamming shut, over and over and over.

It didn't mean much that Hunter was alive if she'd never see her again, if Hunter would never come back. In a sleep-deprived emotional haze she'd ended everything, finally driven her away for good, but what was the point of feeling bad about it now? It wouldn't change anything, and she'd never been one for regret.

There was nothing for it. It was time to go back to how things used to be, and dully she realized that she wasn't entirely sure how to do that anymore.

Before she might not have even recognized that thought, and now it just made her ache.

She went home, got halfway up the stairs before having to sit down and rest before resuming, and opened the door to her apartment. No one, just as she'd expected. Who would be here? She glanced at the window briefly, saw nothing like she thought, and then shuffled into her bedroom. She sat down on the edge of her bed, fought with the buttons on her shirt that seemed too complicated all of a sudden, too small and too much work before she finally managed to get them undone. Actually getting her shirt off required so much energy now that she got one arm free and then sat there staring at the wall for a minute or two before continuing. Normally she would have put on a t-shirt and some jeans after coming home, but now just getting her work clothes off at all seemed like enough.

After a great deal of mental debate about whether or not she should even bother, she eventually picked up a crumpled nightshirt from the floor and managed to pull it on, a remarkable accomplishment in her current state that she was in no mind to appreciate. She lay down, pulled the blankets up over herself, even that seeming to take too much effort now, and shut her eyes.

This was it. This was her life from now on. She was alone. But she'd done this before. She'd be okay.

She didn't feel okay.

_Please come back._

She pulled the sheets tighter over her head, trying to shut everything out. She didn't need her, or anyone, or anything. She'd be fine without her. After all, what other option did she have?

She'd live. She'd survive.

She must have fallen asleep, since the next thing she could remember was Hunter's voice nearby.

"Hey, are you awake?"

Smoker didn't say anything.

"You didn't get my note, huh? I left it in the window," Hunter said, sounding awkward. "Are you okay?"

_She came back._

"I'm fine," Smoker said, in a very shaky voice.

"Right, you said that before," Hunter said, and she could hear her shifting back and forth uneasily against the carpet. "Um, about yesterday, uh... sorry about that. I didn't mean it. I dunno what came over me." A weak laugh. "Like I could ever leave forever. I mean, nobody else is as much fun to mess with as you."

_I don't need you, I don't need anyone. I don't care. Leave me alone._

"You disappeared for a month." A straight accusation.

"Yeah, sorry about that too." And there was more sincerity about that than there had been the day before. "I should've told you, but I didn't think you'd fall apart without me or anything."

_I didn't._

"I thought you were dead."

"Me?" Hunter laughed a little, somewhat nervous and desperate to try and get the conversation back on more familiar ground. "C'mon, I thought you said _you_ were gonna kill me. More than once. Like once a day, even."

"Hmmph."

She felt Hunter sit on her bed near her, and Smoker rolled over to look at her. Her hood was down and she was smiling at her, and in a way it was almost like she'd never left, and Smoker wanted to be angry at her again, like she had been before, but all she felt instead was an almost suffocating relief that she was there, that she was there and she was okay and she was still here, and she never wanted her to leave again. She just wanted to be with her, and normally she would have suppressed that and refused to acknowledge it but right now... she couldn't.

"Guess what I got to make it up to you," Hunter said, smiling at her and there was something in her eyes, a plea to just forget about the entire thing. "I think you'll like it."

"What is it?" Smoker rasped out, and coughed.

"Just stay there." Hunter dug through her backpack, and she stood and went over to the stereo by the wall. A few minutes of clicks and whirrs, and she could hear familiar music playing. Familiar, but not quite identifiable, but she knew those voices, that guitar.

Hunter sat back down on the bed beside her, looking at her hopefully. "I don't know what you see in these guys, all their songs sound the same."

Smoker sat up. "This is the new Midnight Riders CD, isn't it?"

"Yup." Hunter was smiling. "You have the worst taste in music."

Smoker stared at her, into her eyes, and even as worn out and exhausted as she was, most of her barriers faltering and weak, she couldn't bring herself to move forward, to hold her like she wanted. God, she had missed her so much and she'd been fighting and fighting it and she'd missed her and wanted her and now she was here again, and she just wanted to hold onto her, but she didn't reach out to her. That wasn't what they did, not that way.

"It's not as bad as yours," Smoker said, her voice still shaky and rough, and her eyes stung. She rubbed at them with the back of her hand. "Ugh, I haven't slept in weeks."

"You look really awful." Hunter scooted a bit closer to her, and she didn't try to hide her concern as much as she might have otherwise. "Your eyes are super red."

"Thanks for that." Smoker leaned back against her headboard, her eyes nearly closed. She thought Hunter would say something like that, and the normality of it was almost comforting. "You really know how to make someone feel special."

"Well, I bet no one looks as bad as you do right now, how about that? That's pretty special." Hunter pulled her legs up onto the bed, and they stared at each other for a few moments. Hunter moved forward, and Smoker stayed where she was, and with far more hesitation than one would ever expect from her, Hunter set her hands on either side of Smoker's legs, like she was readying herself to sit in her lap. There was a brief moment where she didn't do anything, like she was waiting, and Smoker actually wondered if Hunter was going to ask her if she could get close to her, which would be a first.

Remnants of awkwardness from yesterday, not sure if things were back to normal just yet, and the alternative was too much to bear right now. Smoker tilted her head, a silent _come on_. That was more than enough, and in a manner of moments Hunter was sitting on top of her like always, although she was a bit more delicate about it than she had been in the past. Her weight was warm and familiar, and Hunter's eyes widened a little. "Jeez, you're like a skeleton. First thing we have to do is get you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"I've heard that before. Yeesh, I can feel your ribs." Hunter splayed her hands along Smoker's sides. "Well, more than before."

She focused on how it felt to have someone touch her again, to have Hunter invading her personal space again, how it felt to have her here again and with her and alive, and god, she'd missed this so much. She never wanted her to leave. She'd never say it out loud, never say something like that cause it wasn't something they could just _say_, but there were ways around it.

They knew their ways around it. Smoker blinked slowly, and for once it was hard for her not to smile. "Going to complain about my shoulder blades next?"

Hunter smiled at her in return, knew what she meant and wrapped her arms around her. Smoker shut her eyes and returned the embrace, and it was like the tension of the past weeks just slipped away. She'd been holding onto her anger and stress so strongly for so long and she was so tired and more than anything she just wanted to let _go_ for a few moments.

Under other circumstances, the contact might have been so quick that it wouldn't have even registered as a hug, but not this time. Smoker couldn't resist tightening her grip on her, holding her close like she was making sure she was there and couldn't get away, and Hunter made a brief surprised sound before squeezing her almost painfully in response. Expressions of outright affection were far too rare, and after so much time apart, she needed one more than she knew.

Eventually, Hunter moved her hands along Smoker's back, along her bones, and she made a disapproving sound. "Tch, that's awful. They're poking out like five inches, that's not healthy. Why haven't you been eating?"

Smoker sighed and kept her eyes closed, and she'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to be calm again. "You're not my mom."

"You're going to kill yourself someday, you know that? If the cigarettes don't get you first."

"Those are nonnegotiable."

"But food isn't?" Hunter rubbed her head against hers for a moment. "You're so dumb sometimes. I don't know what you'd do without me."

"My life would be a lot less stressful."

"Yeah, you'd be dead of boredom instead."

And Hunter should have moved away from her, but she didn't. They stayed that way a little longer, arms around each other and music playing faintly in the background.

_I was so scared you were dead. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad you're here again. I missed you._

I love you.

But she didn't say any of that.

"If you disappear like that again, I swear I'll kill you."

Hunter started to say something, then apparently thought better of it. After a moment of reconsideration, she gave her one last squeeze before pulling away. "I promise I'll tell you next time, okay?" Before she could think about how uncommonly straightforward that was, Hunter got up and off of her, grabbing her wrist. "Come on, I'm starving. Let's get something to eat."

She didn't have to pull. Smoker was already moving to get up with her, although she lagged far enough behind that it was _like_ she was pulling her along. It was still hard to resist smiling, and it almost felt foreign after all this time spent alone.

"I'm not hungry."

"The hell you're not." Exactly the response she'd expected to that. "You probably don't want to go out, right?"

"Considering I'm not wearing any pants, no."

"Then we should order something and just eat in." Like Smoker hadn't said anything, or that there wasn't anything unusual about what she _had_ said. "What do you want? If you say nothing I'm going to punch you in the nose."

After finding the drawer where she kept all the takeout menus and a fair amount of bickering over what to get and how much, Hunter made the call while Smoker took the opportunity to at least pull on a pair of sweatpants. She wasn't alone for long though; Hunter found her way to her side as soon as she had the opportunity, and when Smoker sat down on the couch to wait, Hunter filled a long-empty gap beside her. She'd forgotten how the couch cushions dipped beneath Hunter's weight, how gravity tended to lean them closer together unless Smoker slouched against one of the arm rests, how Hunter fit against her when she had an arm slung across the back of the couch, how this all felt.

A month without something didn't sound like a long time, but it depended on what you were missing while it went by.

They watched TV while waiting, neither mentioning the argument from the previous day. Like it had never happened, back on familiar and comfortable ground and that was what she wanted. Just to forget the whole thing and go back to the way things were. She still didn't know what it was that Hunter had been doing during their time apart and at this rate she'd probably never know, and she would have been lying if she said she wasn't curious about it, and why Hunter didn't want to talk about it. But the risks of digging it up again, fracturing the peace they'd now made for an answer that she might not even really want, were too much. Now that she had this back again, she didn't want to risk it, even if it meant never actually dealing with what had happened in its entirety. So she left it. Backed off.

There were still awkward moments, comments that might have been made if the fight didn't still linger between them, jokes that had to be rephrased, teasing that might cut too sharply through something fragile. More than a few sentences dwindled off while they were talking, the two of them adjusting to avoid the new sore spot. Eventually time would dull the edges, new boundaries fuzzing and becoming ordinary, and it'd be like nothing had ever happened. It worked well enough for both of them, and in a way they didn't know any other way to handle this sort of thing.

But things would work out.

When the food came, Smoker ate a little of it, more than she would have alone, but when she moved to set it down Hunter gave her a meaningful stare.

"Don't make me force you to eat it. You're not going to collapse into a pile of bones while I'm here, you got it?" Pointing at her eyes, then at Smoker's eyes in some ridiculous threat, and Smoker shook her head with a sigh, and it still didn't take thought to smile.

"You say that like that's something that happens around you a lot."

"It's more likely than you think."

"Maybe you should stop hanging around the armies of the undead."

"But I have a way with skeletons!" She pointed at her. "See? Case in point."

"I'm not a skeleton."

"So how dry _are_ your bones, anyway?"

Usually Hunter would ask her for the rest of her food if Smoker didn't want it, but this time she held off asking for much longer than usual. It wasn't as hard to eat now as it had been before, not with Hunter chatting with her and making jokes and asking her how it was, and once even asking her if she was thirsty, which was a little odd. If she'd said yes, she was almost sure Hunter would have gotten her something to drink, which wasn't something she normally had a tendency to do.

She didn't say things, not directly, just as Smoker did not say things, and that shared trait between them taught them how to read the other more carefully than they might have otherwise. Hunter didn't say it, but she could see it in her eyes, how she watched her, how she asked her if she liked it, if this place was as good as it was before, if she wanted a drink, if she was going to finish that.

_I care._ And when Smoker held it out to her, Hunter refused and told her to eat a little bit more, then she'd take it. _I'm worried about you._

That was all that mattered now. Hunter had apologized for hurting her and it'd felt unfamiliar, too close, and this was where it mattered, where she knew it and could see it, where her sincerity lingered behind each glance, each question, each joke, each smile. She'd never say it, bring it out into the light, but she didn't have to.

When the food was put away and Smoker felt full and tired, she went to her bedroom and found Hunter following her as usual. She glanced behind her, silently asking _what are you doing_, and Hunter just walked around her to sit on the side of her bed, unwrapping some of the duct tape around her arms and legs.

Smoker told her to go home, to go away, in a voice a bit weaker than it would have been otherwise, and Hunter just smiled at her like she knew she'd say that, and she probably did. Hunter stayed where she was, and Smoker didn't have the energy to put much into the illusion of chasing her off, so instead she just lay down and curled up on her side, her back to her, closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

It didn't take long before she felt Hunter's arms around her. When she rolled over a little to look at her, go through the motions of telling her to leave, Hunter just shifted to rest her head against her chest, still holding onto her.

"Get outta here," Smoker said softly. Hunter just tightened her grip on her.

"Nope."

"Cmon, shoo." She rested a hand on her shoulder, ostensibly to push her off but exerted no actual pressure.

"Someone's got to make sure you get some sleep," Hunter said. "Looks like it's gonna be me."

"I don't need you to fall asleep."

"I'm not going anywhere."

There was more to that than was immediately obvious, but she knew that. They both knew that. Smoker let out a long sigh, closed her eyes and focused on Hunter's weight on top of hers, how warm she was, how her arms felt around her, how many times they'd fallen asleep this way on the couch in front of the TV, or here after reading together.

Smoker moved her hand from her shoulder to Hunter's hair, running her fingers through for a few seconds before settling her arms around her.

"Fine, be that way," she mumbled. "Just stay with me forever, see if I care."

_I love you._

She'd never say it, but it was there.

The last thing she could remember before she fell asleep was Hunter saying something like, "Maybe I will."


End file.
